Reading Problems:
Curriculum isn’t the Problem… the BRAIN is!
By Toni Hager @2007

Enormous sums of money are spent on reading programs and books. Schools have reading specialists and consultants. A great deal of instructional time is spent on the teaching of reading. In most schools, more time is spent on instructional reading than any other subject.  There are motivational programs to encourage reading, unlike other subjects, such as summer reading programs, library programs and even high profile wives of recent American Presidents encouraging literacy programs and interest in reading. Why is there so much emphasis on reading by so many? It is because the majority of our children are poor readers. Many are unable to read at all and almost all could be reading better than they are. Unfortunately, the Herculean effort put forth by schools, teachers and parents to solve this problem continues to fail many children even though they have good intelligence and are often doing very well in other subjects.

So why aren’t children learning to read?

The reason for such failure is that the majority of solutions being tried are based on the thinking that the problem will improve only when the right teaching method is found for a particular child. When that fails to produce results, the next attempt usually involves more reading. That approach is based on the misguided thinking that if you have a child do more of what he does poorly, he will somehow learn to do it better. Children with reading problems then face the stress of the regular reading lesson, the reading tutor and then the reading required at home. Their day is full of frustration and failure that can often lead to undesirable behaviors or worse, a poor attitude regarding learning and school. When this strategy fails, and it will, schools will then blame the problem on the child being lazy and in some cases they may even try to somehow put the blame on parents.

The real problem is that schools are just ill equipped to find the root cause of the problem.

In some cases, they actually discover that a particular child may have some sort of neurological block but are even less equipped to do something constructive about it. Schools have become so frustrated over this issue that they actually invented a term they can throw at the problem when all else fails. That term is dyslexia which means having difficulty in reading telling families they don’t know why it happens.

Reading requires a variety of complex neurological skill…

The nervous system must be
able to perceive
                 …visually in accurate ways.

Many children have undetected visual problems yet have 20/20 sight. Sight and vision are two different things. Sight occurs in the eyes only.  Sight is the eyes response to light (the person isn’t blind).  Sight is the ability to change light rays into electrical impulses that are carried to the optic nerve.  These impulses must be reconstructed and interpret the images.  Sight is not a vision test.  Traditional eye exams of reading the Snell eye chart simply shows a person can see at a distance, a measure of acuity.  Unfortunately, reading and other learning requires being able to see close-up.  Vision must involve much more then sight.  It is the process of deriving meaning from what is seen, integrating it with the information received from the other senses, and then directing one’s action according. 

The eyes must work together as a team in a coordinated manner.  They must have the ability to track from left to right and up and down.  They must be able to focus on the printed letters/words. They must be able to decode abstract letters and words. They must process this information by efficiently filtering, associating, sorting, storing and retrieving. They must do all this and much more in consistent, organized and skilled ways that occur automatically.  If reading out loud visual-motor skills are need.

…and auditory, yes listen

Recent research shows that until the reader is at the speed reading level reading is actually AUDITORY. The central nervous system (CNS) begins the printed words journey with the visual cortex simply seeing the word.  Once the word has entered the brain the same auditory parts used to understand and decipher speech are used to understand and decipher the printed word.  One area decodes (sounds out), yes the brain is hardwired for phonics, words while another area thumbs through its files ‘remembering’ the whole word.  To read a sentence different words (nouns, verbs, and adjectives) are sent to several other parts of the brain. Our children are entering school unequipped with the necessary auditory skills needs not only to learn to read but also listen, follow directions, and hear the differences in subtle changes in words.

Auditory skills needed

With the invention of TV, computers, Game Boys, etc the world today is a visual world; whereas our grandparents and great-grandparents world was auditory.  They spent hours talking to each other, listening to old radio shows learning to listen for details and the subtleties of our language.  Studies are showing that in our fast pace world of rushing children to grow up most kindergartners don’t know Nursery Rhythms.  Nursery Rhythms contain rhyming words that teach the child to hear difference between ‘bake’ and ‘take’ or ‘boat’ and ‘goat’ and fluctuation of the voice.

Reading to your child, even those who know how to read, is the best way to build vocabulary, learn to hear sentence structure and how to show expression, fluctuation of the voice, and visualization.  While listening to a story the child can pretend to be one of the characters, visualize (see in the mind’s eye) the scenery and really “get into the story”.

Reading and asking questions will help build the child’s short-term memory (ability to hold individual pieces of information (facts) together). 

Auditory skills can be improved by: listening to books on tape (audio books), a variety of different music, sound effect tapes, and playing a game where you say a sequence of words or numbers and they repeat back to you what they heard (see auditory/visual processing article).

The skill of reading requires a nervous system 
that has perfected all of its learning skills.

Good readers must have an organized nervous system.  Once those skills are acquired, it makes little difference what method, curriculum, or specialist is used. Children with efficient nervous system that perceive and process well, learn to the level of their potential. Reading becomes a joy for such children because they can do so successfully.

 CAN LEARN provides help for children with reading problems. We do not treat reading problems with hours of extra reading.  Instead, we examine all the important neurological learning skills that should be well established by the time children reach the age of six; the age when the maturing process of a healthy nervous system is completed. For many children, the nervous system simply fails to fully develop some very important learning skills. Once these skills are evaluated, training the ones that are immature or weak can produce excellent results. The cause, not the symptom can be helped returning the child to the successful, self-assured individual they were meant to be.

On average, our students gain THREE years in reading during one eight month school year!  You can eliminate your child’s reading problems if you can commit to a half-hour or so three times a week to implement specialized training activities in the comfort of your own home.

The difference in the outcome of your child's school
 career can be significantly
enhanced by a simple investment of a small
amount of time, now.

Call TODAY!
CAN LEARN office at (509) 624-3108 or  www.kidscanlearn.net